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The basic project assignment is straightforward: create a web site on some aspect of Latina/o Studies or the Latina/o experience that has some relevance to the readings and the lectures for this semester. If you need a little inspiration, take a look at what other students have done with this project on the El Museo Latina/o page
To complete this assignment, you must submit three preparatory assignments by the dates listed on the syllabus. Click on the link above for complete details about these assignments.
Website Format
The overall format and structure of project sites is entirely up to the developers. The following pages, however, are required:
- Site home page. Your site's "front door" should include a descriptive project title, a brief introduction to the project explaining the scope and purpose of the site, and links to the bibliography, notes, and credit pages (see below) as well as to the AC213 home page. This home page must have the file name "index.html" and be located in your main project folder.
- Works cited page. Your site should include an annotated bibliography of all sources consulted. The bibliography should contain at least six (6) entries, including at least one journal article and at least one book. An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. The bibliography should follow the Chicago Style Manual Guidelines. For more information on compiling and formmating your bibliography, you can check out the Cornell University's guide on preparing an annotated bibliography. You can also check out Professor David Porter's example to get an idea of how to properly format your annotated bibliography.
- Image source page . This is a page that contains source information and attribution for copyrighted images that you use in your website. See the working with images page for more information.
- Notes page. This is a separate page of numbered endnotes, providing citation information for all quotations and paraphrases in the main body of the site. Clicking on a note number within the site should take the user directly to the relevant entry on the endnotes page. Full citation information for a given source should be included the first time the source is cited in the notes. Subsequent citations may use an abbreviated form. See the Citing Sources page for details.
- Credits page. Include the names of all contributors, the date of completion, and the course in which the project was assigned (course number, title, semester, and instructor's name).
Grading Guidelines:
Sites will be graded on their adherence to the following guidelines and on the quality of their content and design. Please see the extensive list of web design principles elsewhere on this site for suggestions on creating a successful web project.
1. Make it relevant
While the main focus of your project will be some aspect of Latina/o Studies rather than any particular text, You should make explicit connections between your topic and the assigned readings for the course. You might choose, for instance, to draw on textual examples to illustrate a phenomenon you discuss in your site, or demonstrate how an idea explained in your site might be applied in the interpretation of an issue from an assigned text or lecture.
2. Utilize the web medium
Projects should be conceived and designed to take full advantage of the web medium. Simply transposing a traditional research paper onto a web page is not acceptable; the unique multi-media and cross-referencing capabilities of web-based communication should be incorporated into the basic design of the project from the very outset.
3. Do original research
The information you include in your website should correspond to a 10-12 page research paper. This means that Website Projects should contain a significant component of original research, interpretation, and analysis. It is fine to include factual material, web site links, scanned images, and quotations, but the intellectual heart of the project should reside in your own treatment of these materials. Although readers are interested in facts, facts alone do not make a successful website. You should also include your own critical and imaginative responses to and interpretations of those facts. Why are they interesting or important? What questions do they raise for you?
4. Keep it simple but stylish
Although fancy, hi-tech bells and whistles (video, sound, animation, Java applets) are neither required nor expected, developers should give attention to basic design issues, such as providing an attractive, user-friendly interface that displays properly on the most commonly used browsers, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla and Explorer. Carefully review the page on principles of web design as you begin planning and building your project.
5. Make sure you cite ALL of your sources
The usual standards of academic integrity will apply, and all quoted, scanned, or paraphrased material should be linked, by means of a clickable note number within the same paragraph, to complete citation information on a separate notes page. You must also list all of the sources fo images that you use in your website (in the Image source page). Plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the project and possibly for the course. See the page about citing sources for more details.
6. Edit carefully!
Thoroughly proofread, spell-check, and link-check your project prior to final submission. El Museo Latina/o is accessible to thousands of potential users, and every component of it is expected to demonstrate a high level of professionalism.
(Most of the information in these link has been brought to you courtesy of Professor David Porter, who developed a number of website production resources for his course on 18th century England. If you'd like to take a look at some really exciting examples of what you can do with this project check out his class website, Eighteenth Century England)
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